Nutcrackers

• Nutcracker 1. Brushed stainless steel, German made. 17cm long
• Nutcracker 2. Red powder coated steel with wooden handles 19cm long.

Two types of Nutcracker. Both excellent. One clearly more festive than the other. I've always wondered why we all eat nuts all year that are already shelled and come Christmas we suddenly feel we have to crack them ourselves.... 

We have a very strong, but not cheap stainless nutcracker made in Germany. We never want to be thought of as an expensive shop, but there are a handful of items that are either excellent but quite expensive or cheap, but sh*t. We don't want that either. We had cheaper nutcrackers and they just bent. That's, as they say, 'not ideal'.

I'll have to try to describe just how weighty and fabulous these feel if you can't come into the shop to hold them. No nut stands a chance (the general idea). But certainly they're the kind of quality a person of an engineering appreciating persuasion would hold and say "oh that's a bit of kit".

Nutcracker 2. Red powder coated steel conical shape where the nut goes, sprung with wooden handles. Very traditional. Very good. Made in Spain. So the conical shape of the bit where the nut goes allows for every size of nut imaginable. I would say it takes marginally less strength to crack the nut, since it's a sprung mechanism. AND they can open a bottle of Champagne by gripping the pesky cork firmly in their vice-like grip. They are a beautiful thing indeed. If someone gave me these and a bag of nuts, that would keep me quiet over the hols. 

Or you could keep using the hammer.